"even when she was lying, there was a certain truth she always told"
A pretty girl, a deal gone wrong, an ultimatum, and a death...
Another average week for the Peaky Blinders.
[T. Shelby]
[Under Editing]
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What had she done?
Thalia couldn't figure out what had happened for a moment. At least, not until red blossomed against the white of her dress, a perfect circle in the left side of her stomach. When had she lifted her hand to her stomach? Her body was moving of its own accord, it seemed. She looked up at Thomas, who she vaguely recalled pushing out of the way only a second earlier, but Thomas was aiming at a man on the ground.
What was he laying there for? Thalia asked herself, before the memory of the fight struggled back to the forefront of her suddenly hazy mind.
Oh.
She watched Thomas discard his gun on the table after he fired it, and then he leapt towards her. Not quick enough, unfortunately.
Her knees went weak, and her eyesight erupted with black spots. She crumpled to the ground like a discarded garment; her ragged breathing and some strange pounding sound seemed to engulf the bar with noise... or maybe it was just the blood pulsing in her ears; she couldn't tell.
Strong arms grabbed her just before her head smacked the floor, and Thalia found herself staring up at the bluest eyes she'd ever seen. She drew a shaking hand away from her stomach and touched her finger tips to Thomas' face, accidentally smearing a bit of blood on his check in process.
"Tu as de beaux yeux, Soldat."
And then there was nothing but the darkness and the ringing in her ears.
Thalia would never know the panic in Thomas' eyes immediately after, and she'd never hear him shout for a medic only for the emptiness of the Garrison to respond. She'd never feel his arms, strong and sure, lift her up carefully, bridal style, as he practically bolted out of the pub. She wouldn't remember the briskness of the night, not Thomas Shelby sprinting down the cobblestone streets as best best he could with her in his arms, not even him knocking past Polly when she opened the door to the Shelby's gambling hall. She'd never know how he waited with her, for hours, as John Shelby ran down the street to fetch a doctor and Polly urged Thomas to explain what had happened.
She'd never see the confused concern with which that man regarded her.
She would, however, wake to the sting of alcohol being poured on her bare stomach by a man she didn't recognize. And that she'd remember vividly. She'd felt the pain of it before, of course, but it's not as if you could build up a tolerance to gun shot wounds, or the bite of cleaning them afterwards. She woke up screaming, and it was arguably the worst part of the whole ordeal for the house's inhabitants.
